Monthly Archives: February 2012

I’m going to say something which some lefties, like our friends at Political Scrapbook and Polly Tonybee at the Guardian, might take offence at. The government’s volunteer work placement scheme is a good thing.

You see this is controversial because the governments ‘evil slave labour’ work experience program is currently facing the ire of the left wing blogosphere. The thing is people like Laurence Durnan, editor of Political Scrapbook, used to agree work experience was a good thing.

It’s not so different from the government’s programme which places young people with prospective employees for a few weeks of unpaid work experience. As you might expect from a small outfit, the internship is unpaid, but in fairness, Political Scrapbook have tried to make access to its scheme as open as possible.

There is a major difference between Political Scrapbooks Graduate Placement program and the governments however – the government’s participants get full Job Seekers Allowance.

Under the Governments volunteer scheme people get full JSA, a change made last year for full time placements, whereas, by requiring their interns work at least “24 hours across the week” and by not participating in the scheme Laurence and his team bar young people from claiming Job Seekers Allowance, as this can only be claimed for private placements of 16 hours a week or less.

On their site Scrapbook say that interns can “support themselves with other paid work” – Oh the irony.

I do wonder if they have thought this through. It is hard for young people to get work without experience and it’s harder still to get experience without work. Without a work experience programme many young people will continue to face a catch 22.

The left used to trumpet state intervention programs and this is exactly what the government’s program is; intervention to help young people get work.

35,000 young people have volunteered for the scheme since it launched and more than half of those have since found work.

Voluntary schemes should be voluntary and there must be no threat of benefits being withdrawn. People doing work experience should be experiencing work, not replacing salaried staff and any company which does that should face sanctions and boycotts.

But the left are not calling for sanctions applied if people pull out of the scheme to be scrapped, perhaps because only 200 have faced a sanction, they are deliberately and confusingly conflating the work experience scheme, which offers short term work placements with private companies, with schemes like the Mandatory Work Activity programme, which offers placements which “makes a contribution to the community” for the long term unemployed.

By trying to tarnish companies with unjustifiable accusations of ‘slave labour’ to the point that they back out under a hail of angry tweets, the left is seeking to deny tens of thousands of young people an important opportunity to make themselves attractive to employers and ultimately, make it harder for them to find work.

With a flurry of tweets and a sense of misplaced moral superiority sites like Political Scrapbook are using their own unpaid labour to try and lay low the coalitions efforts to help young people out of work.

Left wing blogs and commentators are trying to destroy the coalitions back to work programme because it’s not a Labour Party programme and, therefore, they oppose it on ideological grounds.

Polly Tonybee, writing in 1997 for the Independent proclaimed “The Tories were right: workfare really works (…and it is Labour that will cash in) In the article she muses of Job Seekers; ‘Did they find the prospect of three months’ compulsory work so terrible that they chose to starve instead?’ She applauds that ‘Labour’s (1997) manifesto will also promise workfare, compelling all the young and long-term unemployed to work or train.’

By expecting their interns to find part time work so they can subsidise the left wings anti government campaign, Scrapbook, and other left wing commentators, are making a mockery of double standards and doing those out of work a major disservice.

What price to try and give the coalition a bloody nose? It’s shameful.

Like this:

Everyone loves a good fountain right? The free running water, the tranquil environment, the fun and frolics of an idle warm summers afternoon spent in the spray of a beautiful marvel of engineering? God I miss summer..

Parliament loves a good fountain as well, the Jubilee Fountain Sculpture in New Palace Yard was given as a gift from MPs to the queen for her 1977 Silver Jubilee – not that she’s actually allowed in New Palace Yard or anything.

It has been turned off since 2008 because of faulty pipes and a scare over contaminated water, long enough that most honourable members, bag carriers and hacks thought it was just a pretty statue. So it was with some surprise, and befuddlement last week when villagers saw the 35 year old courtyard centrepiece burst into life.

Following an Early Day Motion some bright spark in the commons thought it would be a good idea to repair the statue in time for this years Diamond Jubilee celebrations and authorised an expensive repair job, so far so anniversary, but who’s idea was it to turn it on during a massive UK wide cold snap?

Predictably, as you can see above, the fountain turned into the worlds most legislated over ice sculpture, according to workmen enjoying a well-earned pint in a commons drinking hole last night, however, the pipes froze and the force of pressurised water caused them to rupture underground – with temperatures plummeting to minus 10 and the unicorn growing a number of ice horns that was absolutely, in no way, foreseeable.

The initial repair job is thought to have taken several weeks and cost several thousand pounds of taxpayers money, back to the drawing board then chaps…

Like this:

A lot of nonsense gets put out by Labour press people these days providing hours of fun. About an hour ago, however, one particular release caught my attention as so made up and out of touch with reality I just had to log it.

The news according to Labour is that “ministers are attempting to block the appointment of Les Ebdon as Director of the Office for Fair Access” In a confused press release the honourable member for bespoke suits, Chuka Umunna, accused the government of using Les Ebdon ‘as a political football’ and that ‘Ministers need to act to end the infighting and ensure that an appointment is made swiftly’

Meanwhile, on planet earth, real news outlets, like the Huffington Post, BBC News and Times Higher Education reported that Vince Cable and David Willetts are in a stand off with the Business, Innovation and Skills select committee over the appointment after Backbench Tories voted to try and block the appointment yesterday.

Les Ebdon has the full support of coalition ministers of both colours and the government is currently deciding whether or not to overrule the select committee. That’s not exactly ‘ministers attempting to block the appointment’ now is it?

He’s well dressed but is Chuka on top of his brief? Does he know what’s happening in the real world or are Labour really so used to lying to the public that they hope to press release Star Trek levels of fiction and pray no one checks before delivery?

On his twitter feed Chuka has been speculating who will be the next England football manager – maybe he should stick to that and leave politics to those who know what they’re talking about…

Like this:

With 775 rooms Buckingham palace is going to get hit really hard by the bedroom tax

Depending on how easily offended you are by Anti Monarchy jokes today is either the 60th anniversary of the woman in the hats ascension to the throne of the United Kingdom or the 60th Anniversary of the woman in the hats fathers’ death.

You see if you are celebrating the Diamond Jubilee its the former, if you are faking outrage about this blokes anti monarchy joke you might want to point out the latter to pour additional faux outrage upon your faux outrage.

I’m mostly just outraged at the hat – you and I brought that hat. I mean look at it. No one needs a hat that big.

It seems everyone who has every complained that political correctness has gone mad has discovered that not being politically correct about the monarchy when you work for an MP is a crime punishable by being sworn at on twitter. Almost all of these people also seem to read the Daily Mail.

Twitter is a great place to communicate and is a hugely useful social tool – weirdly I know, dozens of Parliamentary researchers are on twitter for that reason. Weirdly, too, they all have their own opinions separate from their bosses and might want to express them as individuals…

As a staffer who works for an MP, tweets, blogs and has held internal party office with a public role I do of course see the fine line where valid comment becomes political headline or twitter storm.

Usually the line is crossed if you do something illegal or embarrassing, like being overtly racist or playing willy banjo in a youtube video. Thankfully I’ve done neither, but you do of course have to keep in mind party and MP dignity when you play around with tweets.

But, bearing self dignity in mind, MPs staff have a right to express their personal opinions. Bag Carriers are not an MPs representative on earth and as long as it is clear you are speaking for yourself where exactly is the problem as long as the comment is within the bounds of the law and public decency?

Now, there is the Paul Waugh school of thought which seems to think that if a staffer says something they must be speaking for or representing their boss. Its a disingenuous train of thought from a hack who obviously got out the wrong side of bed this morning and decided to make a non story out of a half decent joke.

Andy Slaughter MP, too, deserves some vitriol. He said of the matter “The Queen has given great service to our country and these comments are totally unacceptable.” another Labour MP later quipped “apparently daring to criticise the continued subsidy of our already wealthy and unelected head of state is “completely unacceptable” I agree with the nameless Labour MP frankly.

Ultimately, however, I’m disappointed with Matt Zarb. There was no need to apologise and doing so only gave the story legs.

People complain and mock politicians for being bland, faceless drones. We rightly mock Miliband when he answers 5 different questions with a bland statement about those strikes being wrong, or when politicians refuse to answer a question on Newsnight, but we need to ask ourselves why MPs do it. It seems even if you are not an elected representative of the people you can’t have a sense of humour these days.

Matt Zarb told a joke about the royal family scrounging off benefits. It was quite funny, or not, depending on your tastes. It stems from his belief that it is wrong that the taxpayer pays for an unelected head of state. Cowing him into submission, so he and others become the identikit politician’s of tomorrow does no one any good, least of all the terms of our political debate. He should have stood his ground.

I, for one, refuse to be cowed. At some point I’ll say or do something I believe in which someone else will take offence at and I’ll go right ahead and let them them be offended. Its a great perk of being British that the right to free speech outweighs your faux morale outrage.

So yes, Maam, I do not approve of the fact that because of an accident of birth you have ruled over this country for 60 years and enjoy a life of state banquets, helicopters and palaces on a massive taxpayer subsidy binge because you are the unelected head of state to which none of us has consented. Happy Bloody Jubilee.